Ngige says UTAS proposed by ASUU has no hardware backing
By Modupe Shodeinde
The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said that the payment platform University Transparency and Accountability Solution (UTAS) proposed ASUU has no hardware backing.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities had on March 2020, embarked on an indefinite strike over several issues one of which is the opposition to the adoption of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
In its stead, the union proposed UTAS as an alternative.
Speaking to state house correspondents on Monday after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, Ngige said the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency was conducting the integrity test on the software.
According to him, UTAS is still undergoing integrity test and preliminary report suggests that it may take six to eight weeks for it to be ready.
He however stated that the UTAS has no hardware backing and for the software (UTAS) to function, it must have a hardware to back it.
“The UTAS, that is the University Transparency and Accountability Solution which they brought, is not yet ready. It is not fully ready. It is undergoing integrity test for the software. I am not a computer scientist, but you must also know that you must test the hardware in the integrity test for the software,” Ngige said.
“As we speak, ASUU has no hardware and UTAS does not have hardware backing.
“I am waiting for the NITDA full report, but in the preliminary report they gave me, the software integrity test will take them about six to eight weeks and thereafter, we go to the hardware. But the big issue is, ‘who will provide the hardware?’
“ASUU doesn’t have the finances to do so. Has government budgeted for it now as we speak? So, that one is a major problem.
“But we don’t have to dissuade anybody. We don’t have to tell anybody not to carry on. We like local content development. We need our things to be home grown. So, we are really encouraging them.” Ngige said
